Learning to see what He sees.

About

I’m Lauren, and I’m exhausted by impossible standards.

I, like many other women out there, dream of living the unblemished life. The life without constant screw-ups and letdowns. I want to be the perfect woman who has it all together–inside and out. The envy of every other woman. The one they look at and say, “Wow, how does she do it?”

But, I am far from it.

I’m a mom who forgets (often) to send her son’s sheet and blanket to school with him for nap time. I rarely ever cook, my mother-in-law irons my husband’s shirts for us every week, and my family tells me we are meeting 15 minutes before we actually are because they know I am never on time. I wash the same load of laundry three times before it can go in the dryer because I forget I even put it in there to begin with, and after it is dried, you can forget about it being hung up. I can’t even say, “Absolutely, my life is put together!” with a straight face.

But, somehow my God still sees me as unblemished. As holy and blameless.

When I look at me, I see a tired wife, mom, teacher, daughter, and friend who can’t keep up with all of her responsibilities. A woman who feels like ten years were knocked off her life in just two months of battling postpartum OCD. A woman with acne scars and wrinkles. A woman who says dumb stuff often, who is never organized, and who desperately needs to control her tongue (and her eating habits).

But, somehow my God still sees me as unblemished. As holy and blameless.

I don’t understand it. I don’t know how He could see this hot mess as anything but the crazy hot mess that I am–but He does.

And so, this is about me learning to accept that truth. Learning to accept that He loves me just as I am. Learning to show myself a little grace. And learning to accept that the impossible standards set by this current culture about what it means to be a good wife and good mother and beautiful woman are not only unfair but are debilitating to the females He already sees as unblemished–just as they are.

And this is about celebrating the fact that being a little messy is actually really beautiful.

Thank God.

“Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.” Colossians 1:22 NLT